So all of us were sniggering when Malcolm Blights team came out.  We were all thinking "what is this midprice madness"?!

Well here we are a couple of rounds into the season and though Blights team isnt necessarily the best at the moment, a team named Blighty Teasdale has the number one slot.

And yes once again, great work in the forums tearing the top teams apart.  Its fantastic we have such a good group of people here wanting to do some nice work to make my job easier.   And its smoked McAlmanac out.   Hope to see you comment a bit more.   As you wrote in the forums you can always be called "a former world number one".   Even in my best ever season I was never able to take the overall lead (3rd was my best, top 10 for about 10 weeks).   But I digress...(after thinking of the future ranks of FWN1 champs including Dirty Whorks and Yamumlovesbigcox)

So what makes his team special?   Well if you throw a range of midprice gambles in the air and they all come up trumps, thats pretty much what I see in this team so far.   Which is no surprise as were only two rounds in.   The question that needs to be asked is "will these gambles continue to pay off?"  If they do, well hes a genius and will be hard to stop in the Supercoach running this year.

Lets see his team over the break

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Defence: Only one premium.  Inspired strategy one would say with a few of the rusted on prems of previous years in the doldrums.  And no Goddard!

Deledio, Dempsey, Malceski, Bower, Hargrave, Clarke, Lake (Morris, Ellis)

Midfield: A ripping 4-1-3 combination, reliant on Ebert, but hes had a great start to the year.  Another pertinent point is that Wingard is here and probably not getting a game.  Lots of dollars there for possible future upgrades.

Pendlebury, Ablett, Thompson, J Selwood, Brad Ebert, Magner (Wingard, Shiel)

Ruck: Hes gone 202, and has the pick of the bunch.  Could not have a better ruck combination at this stage of proceedings, value for money and points on the board.  Giles is a very luxurious cash cow.

Sandilands, Kreuzer (Giles, Redden)

Forwards: Im looking for a few more weaknesses, and the forward division might be some are found.  Thing is he has forwards that have held value early, which is a very important thing to do.   He can get into others fallen premiums, yet his midpricers may well stay close enough to top 10 to not warrant a slash and burn upgrade.   Obviously two trades will be used here this week to improve the two rookie bombs.   And what great potential replacements exist.

Franklin, N Riewoldt, Goodes, Darling, S Reid, Porplyzia, D Smith (Folau, Pfeiffer)

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So how will this team get beaten I hear you ask?

In the long term, that defence will require at least 4 upgrades (more likely 5), the midfield 2, and the forward line 4.  Id suggest that will leave this team a touch short when compared with teams that have a few more locked in premiums.   The other thing is that when you go with a team of this structure, you have to nail the rookies, and nail the first downgrade so that you can create and kill another cow.   I think theres the potential for this team to have 8 of the best rookies sitting there waiting to moo, but the downgrade options may not be as good as other players that teams have already locked in now.

If a few options can remain available as future cows/coverage, then this team will be up there for a longer stint near the top.  If not, it will head to midprice purgatory.

Good luck McAlmanac.  Hope to see you comment a bit more around here, as you certainly know enough to put a good team on the park early, and make the chasing hordes need to do a power of work to catch you up.

Until next week, best of luck to all who want to "Beat the Best"